It’s going to take all my willpower to not turn this post into a barrage of emo bashing jokes, but I’ll try. For science. Ten researchers at NASA have created a paint that is ten times blacker than the previously blackest paint. It’s made out of carbon nanotubes on a titanium backing.

The new material will be used to coat the guts of cameras and telescopes in space. Right now, these instruments use NASA’s Z306 paint, a pitch black painting that reduces photon contamination by absorbing errant light. According to NASA, this light “has a funny way of ricocheting off instrument components and contaminating measurements.” [Gizmodo]

The paint they currently use, Z306, isn’t dark enough, as 40% of the data captured by instruments is contaminated by errant light. The new carbon nanotube paint absorbs light awesomely well, soaking up 99.5% of all ricocheting light. Hit the jump for other “improvement simulations” for this amazing paint: